Nikki Haley on Social Security

Social Security reduced rampant poverty among elderly

President Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal changed how Americans thought about the federal government. People were suffering, and the private sector was viewed as having failed. So the American people, under Roosevelt's direction, turned to government.
It was a government that appeared more compassionate and caring but was at the same time more aggressive and intrusive.

Some of the government interventions of that time and of the previous progressive era are things we now take for granted.
Social Security as a way to reduce rampant poverty among the elderly. Child labor laws and minimum-wage and maximum-work-hour-laws to curb some of the roughest edges of the capitalist system. The ability to voluntarily join an industrial labor union.
We would no more look to undo these innovations than we would seek to return to the pre-civil rights era laws on race discrimination. They have become a part of the American fabric, and it's a good thing they have.

Public service retirees: no COLA; no spiking; no double-dip

The size of our pension system's unfunded liability has ballooned from $199 million in 1999 to $17 billion this year. If we are to honor our commitments to those who have already dedicated their careers to public service, then no one can dispute that
this is an issue we must resolve to deal with today.

Our current policy of automatically awarding cost of living increases is irresponsible and unsustainable. To protect our pension funds, we must stop granting cost-of-living increases to our retirees
in years when the funds are losing money. It may not be politically popular, but it's the only responsible thing to do.

There are a number of other reforms that we must adopt in order to shore up the retirement systems and to curtail further abuses.
We need anti-spiking provisions that keep employees from using sick leave and vacation to artificially inflate their pension payouts. For new enrollees, we need to close the doors to the TERI program once and for all to prevent double-dipping.